


Dead Heroes

by celeste9



Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars Sequel Trilogy
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Extra Treat, F/M, Fix-It, Guilt, Missing Scene, Movie: Star Wars: The Last Jedi
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-05-04
Updated: 2018-05-04
Packaged: 2019-04-29 10:34:52
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,199
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14470779
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/celeste9/pseuds/celeste9
Summary: As Paige recovers in the infirmary on the Raddus, Poe comes to pay her a visit.





	Dead Heroes

**Author's Note:**

  * For [boudour](https://archiveofourown.org/users/boudour/gifts).



The burns would heal, Doctor Kalonia said. If she left the bacta patch on long enough to do its work, no one would ever be able to tell how close she had come to losing half her face.

Paige almost felt guilty about it. (More than almost.) It seemed unfair, somehow, that everyone should die and yet she would walk away with nothing more than a stint in the infirmary, not even a scar to show how close she had come to burning up with the rest of the bomber crews.

She would never forget being in her ball turret and seeing the bombers go up one by one until only  _ Cobalt Hammer _ was left. All those beings gone. She would see it in her dreams, she knew, and she would see Nix...

It wasn’t that she wasn’t glad to be alive. Rose had cried and cried, clinging to her until the med droids had insisted she leave, and Paige was… The thought of leaving Rose on her own made Paige feel ill; she wanted to vomit thinking of how close she had come to doing it.

She wasn’t sure how long the figure had been standing in the doorway until she noticed. It was a bit strange, given how hard it was normally to get him to shut his mouth. “Come in, Poe.”

Poe walked forward, hands shoved in his pockets. He looked freshly clean and abnormally subdued, his skin tinged with a slight pallor. 

Paige knew about the hangar, and the bridge, and the general.

He sat in the chair Rose had pulled up and said, “There’s something different about you. Changed your hair?”

It was a weak attempt at humor that had Poe wincing as soon as the words left his mouth, like he couldn’t believe himself.

“You’ve got a new jacket,” Paige said, rolling with Poe’s ineptly terrible teasing anyway. Talking felt a little awkward with the bacta on one side of her face, her lips stretching a bit stiffly.

“What? Oh, yeah. It’s not really new, I just gave Finn my other one.”

“It looks better on him,” Paige said, though she had never even seen Finn in person. She hoped to do so soon; she’d like to thank him.

“It does,” Poe agreed, and for a second or two there his expression almost lightened. “How are you?”

She shrugged. “Alive.”

Poe flinched; Paige immediately regretted her response.

“That wasn’t fair,” she said.

“No, it was. Dead heroes,” Poe said, nearly under his breath. “And I put them there.”

“They chose to be there.”

“They followed my orders. Bad orders, according to Leia.”

“Don’t do that,” Paige said, exhaustion and stress maybe making her irritation rise quicker. “Don’t feel sorry for yourself, and don’t pretend like they didn’t all have minds of their own.”

“They were soldiers on my mission! I--”

“They joined the Resistance because they wanted to be there!” It was difficult to raise her voice with the healing burns and the patch on her face impeding her speech but Paige felt like she was succeeding well enough. “They wanted to fight, to help, to make a difference! Just like I did. You were the officer in charge but every single one of us believed in our mission, and they died completing it. Don’t take that from us, from them, like it was all you.”

“You know that’s not what I meant.”

“Do I? Because you can be a cocky bastard, Poe Dameron.”

Poe sat back slightly, speechless for a second. “Okay, that’s fair. But Paige. Aren’t you… angry? Furious?”

“I’m too tired to be angry,” Paige said, leaning back against the pillow Rose had fluffed for her and stuck behind her back. Even her frustration with Poe was receding as quickly as it had come, leaving her with an odd emptiness. “I don’t… I’m not really sure what to feel yet. I’m alive, and so many of my friends aren’t. But we destroyed a kriffing dreadnought!” 

“Yeah, you did.”

“We did,” Paige insisted. “You’re too cocky but you get the credit, too. We couldn’t have done it without you.” She wished she could have seen him taking out their weapons. That must have been some flying.

“Leia said I was wrong. She said I should have listened to her. It was a distraction and once the evac was complete I should have got you all out of there, left the dreadnought. The mission to buy time was more important than taking out that ship.” He chewed on his lip. “Dead heroes, and no leaders.”

“Poe,” Paige said, and reached out to him, pushing her fingers through his hair. Soft and clean and with that faint crispness to the ends that came from the sonic showers. “I’m not a general and I don’t know what it means to lead, but I know that you completed your mission, seeing it through to the end just like you always do. You did what you thought was right, and so did we, and we took out a dreadnought. A dreadnought that will never again be used by the First Order in their subjugation of the galaxy. I’m proud, and you should be, too.”

Poe caught her hand in his and dragged it down to his mouth, kissing her palm. “I’m sorry,” he whispered into her skin, and Paige’s eyes fluttered closed. “I’m sorry. I’m… Blast, Paige. I don’t know what I would have done if I’d… if you hadn’t made it.”

Paige remembered Poe’s voice shouting through her comms, screaming at her to keep going. She would have done it anyway. There was nothing more important than their work here, nothing she cared more about aside from Rose. She believed in the Resistance.

She would have died for it.

But she was glad she hadn’t.

“Don’t be sorry,” she said, and tugged Poe closer until he slid halfway off his chair to press his face against her middle while she stroked his hair. “I was proud to be on that mission, and I’m proud of what we accomplished. We can mourn for our friends later, when we’re safe.”

Safe. She wondered when that would be; they were being tracked through hyperspace. She wasn’t supposed to know; no one wanted her to worry, after everything else that had happened. Kaydel had told her anyway and Paige was grateful. She didn’t like being kept in the dark, treated like an invalid.

Paige was afraid, but her fear eased a little knowing that at least one dreadnought wasn’t chasing them.

“This is actually super rude,” Poe said, voice muffled against her front. “The comforting thing going on here is the wrong way around. You’re the one in the infirmary bed.”

“Well, you’re very fragile,” Paige said, earning a snort. She kept brushing her hand over the back of Poe’s head. “But this feels nice for me, too,” she admitted quietly. Poe was so rarely still, and she thought she needed this. 

“Thank you,” Poe said, and Paige didn’t know what exactly he was thanking her for but she supposed it didn’t matter. She needed time to process, and so did he.

She was so glad to be alive.


End file.
